Vorster picked as sole Exeter captain

EXETER — The Exeter High School football team will have one captain for the 2014 season.

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By RYAN O'LEARY

seacoastonline.com

By RYAN O'LEARY

Posted Dec. 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

By RYAN O'LEARY
Posted Dec. 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

» Social News

EXETER — The Exeter High School football team will have one captain for the 2014 season.

Current junior and Class of 2014 center/defensive end Neil Vorster was announced as the team's sole captain during Sunday's season-closing banquet held at the high school. Coach Bill Ball made the announcement at the tail-end of the ceremony.

"It's a great program and it's a great honor to be able to lead these kids next year," Vorster said. "It's just going to be a great experience. We're going to stick in the weight room. It's just great to be a part of this right now."

The honor comes on the heels of a season in which Exeter employed four senior captains, the most in Ball's coaching tenure. Class of 2013 captains Zach Adler, Ryan Kelly, Max Medley and Collin Richardson all received team awards during Sunday's banquet.

Vorster said he learned a lot from that group.

"Just stick with it," he said, "be a good leader to not only my grade but for the grades below me as well, the upcoming freshmen, sophomores and everybody. Show them leadership in the weight room, on the field, off the field, in the halls."

It should be a smooth transition for Vorster, an athletic, 6-foot-2, 260-pound lineman who Ball has said could play tight end at the college level. A junior, he logged his second full season as Exeter's starting center and this year added a key presence on the edge of the defensive line, a role he practiced but never played as a sophomore.

Vorster has already attracted attention from some Division I FCS programs, including the University of New Hampshire and Holy Cross, and some schools in the Ivy League. That interest should only increase as he gets bigger and stronger during his senior year.

"He's a tremendous football player on both sides of the ball," Ball of Vorster earlier this season. "He's very intelligent, strong, good wingspan. And he's a very good athlete. Great hand-eye coordination."

He showed his defensive strides in Week 1, deflecting a pass and hauling it in himself for an interception in the first half of Exeter's 48-6 win over Dover. He was a steady influence at defensive end from there, slowed only by knee injury suffered early in a lopsided win over Alvirne on Oct. 11. He missed one week, returned on defense a week later and was back to his starting posts on both sides of the ball for the playoffs.

"It stunk," Vorster said of the injury, "but I enjoyed the fact that I was at least able to come back faster than most anticipated. It was cool to be able come back with my team, even not at all times on both sides of the ball. It was still good to be part of it, dressed or not."

The Blue Hawks will lean on their key lineman next season. He earned All-Conference first-team honors for the second straight season last week and will carry the unusual responsibility of being a solo captain; the team tends to label two per season, like in 2012 when Tyler Grant and Jamie Vogt held that designation.

"It's going to be a cool experience," Vorster said. "I've still got my whole team behind me and I feel like it's going to be great.

"I feel like we have a great future," he added. "We have a great group of kids. Everybody's so tough-working. I love my grade. I love all the kids coming up. I think it's going to be great for us, a great year."